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Comment by _untra_ | Hacker News Reader

Not asking customers to manage a local python installation is one thing, although I totally understand how excel + python power users would likely be comfortable bringing and maintaining their own python runtime.

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You can just ship a copy of Python with Excel, no need to ask anybody to maintain their own installation.

This. Why you would leverage system python is beyond me.

Anaconda distributions aren't exactly small. I'd also assume there's some sort of environment isolation, so you're getting multiple copies. Maybe one per workbook?

No need to use Anaconda or any general purpose venv solution. Microsoft screwed this up.

The embeddable package from python.org [1] is 20 MB unpacked. To install different sets of packages per workbook, just have Excel automatically set the module path as appropriate.

[1] https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3114/

Agreed. They could have easily shipped it with something like MicroPython.

Fun fact: Microsoft shipped Python code in 1996. The could do it again if they really wanted to.

http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/01/microsoft-ships-p...

Does Excel run in a browser today?

There are a lot, I mean a lot apps that support scripting languages and don't need you to manage the language's runtime yourself. Blender's UI is entirely in Python. Civilization games have most game logic in Lua.

Inkscape (vector graphics) also has a built-in Python install, same goes for Cura (3D printing), Fusion 360 (3D CAD), and I'm sure many more

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